Caos, Chaos and Catching Up

The "caos" are keeping things hopping as usual. In addition to our own dogs, we have two more PWDs staying with us over Spring Break. Never a dull moment, at our house, especially since we are also in the middle of remodeling our kitchen!

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Julie and I loaded Ecko and her brother Cooper into her car and headed for Hansville, WA to attend a land-based water workshop put on by the PNWPWDC and taught by Lauren McDermott. The workshop was great, with Lauren breaking all the exercises down in an approachable manner and illustrating everything with lots of video clips. As you can see from the photo, it snowed on our workshop! Since the workshop, I have been motivated to start playing with Ecko on some of the behaviors she will need to tackle apprentice this summer. We've been dunking for treats (to work on the underwater retrieve), practicing taking and carrying a small dummy with a delivery to hand (for the Dummy Carry and Boat Ride) and working on lots of static retrieves with deliveries to hand. I need to get moving with Stoker too and pick up where I left off on training her buoy ball drop.

On the way to the seminar we stopped with the dogs to check out the Simpson Timber Camp and see if it might work for the Club's summer water trial. It is a gorgeous location, but it looks like it may not work due to some constraints in the way some of the existing dock structures are located.

This weekend Chili and Stoker are going with me to a dog show in Albany. The girls are entered in Rally obedience on Saturday and agility on Sunday.

birthdays and haiku

Thursday the 26th marked the 4th birthday for the "fire litter". Birthday wishes to Chip, Ellie, Fresno, JoJo, Maggie, Serena, Shuma and Stoker. Almost everyone responded to my birthday e-mail with reports on their dogs activities. I even got some cool photos of several of the pups. It sounds like they are a lively bunch still, but starting to settle down a bit.

I was updating the website last night and realized that Ecko was the only one of our "pack" that didn't have her very own piece of haiku. Haiku is a form of Japanese poetry that combines three different lines and a noticeable grammatical break. The break is often indicated with commas or hyphens in English haiku. Haiku usually includes nature and everyday things and situations. Haiku is written in three lines, the first with five syllables, the second line with seven syllables and the third line with five syllables. Here are my efforts to convey Ecko in haiku:

Bouncy pinto girl
Spirited, self-willed and smart -
She’s our great white hope

and

Ecko, well, echos...
Full of fun and sweetness too
The world - her oyster

what's in a name?

Ecko's name started as an anagram of her Mom and Dad's names (Stoker and Kilo). You can make some pretty neat combinations with those two names, but the one we stuck on was "Eko". I was concerned it wouldn't get pronounced correctly, but wanted something a little different from "Echo" so we decided on "Ecko". Little did I know when we named her that there is a clothing line named Ecko Unlimited. They have some cool logos featured on some of their tee-shirts and other items and I stopped by our local outlet center last spring to buy some "Ecko" tee-shirts for Jan and I. The logo below is an example of one of the many on their website.

It got me thinking about making a logo for our very own little parti-girl and here is what I came up with.

I had fun with the project, but I wonder: do you suppose the other dogs will be jealous because they don't have their own logos?

fun with words

I found a cool new website today that will make "word clouds" out of words you submit. You can change colors, fonts etc and tweak the layout until it is pleasing to you. Here is a "wordle" I made for Ecko. If you click on it, it will take you to the wordle website and display it full-sized.

another day, another dog show

There was a two day show in Albany this weekend and Cooper, Ecko and Reef were all entered. We entered Reef and Cooper to help build a major in males, and also because this is a small show and a good place to give the boys some experience in showing. Judges Edd Bivin and Karen McFarland were both extremely nice and patient with all the pups that were entered.

The only big win for our crew was Winners Dog and Best of Winners for Jessie's boy Rebel on Saturday. This is Rebel's second major and he only needs 2 more points to finish his championship now. Way to go Jess and Rebel!

Reef and Cooper went head to head in the 12 to 18 puppy class with Reef getting the nod on Saturday and Cooper on Sunday. It was great to have three Kilo pups (Reef, Cooper and Luke) and one Kilo grand-pup (Rebel) showing in the dog classes both days.

The Dog Burglar...

Jessie and Julie met at my house (sort of a half-way point for both of them from their houses) to groom Julie's dog today. Jan and I were gone at work, and the pack 'o four was extremely happy to have people arrive to entertain them. While there, in addition to grooming Cooper, Jess practiced weave poles with all four dogs and dremeled all the dog's nails. I wish Jess would stop by my house more often while I am at work. What a concept.... Sort of a caped crusader for dog owners and their bored pups.

I got Chili's RA title in the mail today. 2009 has started off with a bang with two titles earned already so far (Chili's RA and Decker's OAJ). It got me thinking, just how many titles could a somewhat motivated dog owner with four eager dogs and a bit of an undersized budget earn in a year? I'll keep you posted as the year progresses...

Excellent Decker

Decker was a very naughty boy on his excellent standard run at the agility trial we went to yesterday, running behind my back to take the off-course dog walk for his second obstacle. Bad Decker! Luckily he redeemed himself later in the day by qualifying in Open Jumpers with a fourth place finish to earn his OAJ title. With some more weave pole practice and work on our rear crosses, I think Decker and I will really be rolling in agility... What fun!